Money isn't there to keep things regulated, is it? It's there to give people an incentive to work, right?
Say a builder starts to build a house. He gets paid for this, and thus he can use this money to buy food, etc.
In a world without money, the builder does not want to build the house, but can just go and pick up food. However, seeing as there is no one to build the market, or grow the food for anyone but themselves, the builder has to grow his own food. However, this means he also has to build everything himself, and so does everyone else. However, not everyone is capable of accomplishing this, and their friends are busy with their own problems. These people die off eventually.
I'm probably just stating the obvious, and am just slow, but I thought I'd say that.
I've thought about this before, mainly when I was around 8-10 years old, and I came to this. Money is there because without it, you a, have no sense of possesion because you didn't work for it, b, supply and demand, there simply isn't enough of everything to go around, and c, people are greedy and selfish and any system without a form of currency or trading would fall in on itself in a matter of days, if not hours. There has been no culture that has not had some form of trading, whether it was strawberries for grapes because they each liked the other item better, but it was a trade.
Or implement a barter system. "I will build you a store to carry your food in return for food".
That is a form of currency, value for value, each person gets what they need. Implementing a barter system is how we came to todays world currency standards, it's why there's the whole conversion between countries, some countries are more wealthy or better off, thus their money is worth more, like the difference between a new carpenters chair and an experienced carpenters chair, one has a better implied value.
Without money, you must trade what you have for something else that is conveniently there.
Let's say you work on a farmer's door, they could only pay you back in food. If you already have plenty of food, then there's not much they can give you. With money, you can buy from someone else. Money is something that everybody can use because money can always be converted to something that person is missing. Food on the other hand, can't. If you have plenty of food, then you can't do anything with it. If you tried to trade the food, the only people you can trade with are those who need the food, limiting what you can trade for.
Well bartering is the lowest form of money, and that's where I come up with a problem. If the world had no money, would we even exist? I mean, seriously, if you have no incentive to anything for anyone but yourself, what makes you different from a tiger, who lives alone and dies alone? (bad example, I know)
Money isn't there to keep things regulated, is it? It's there to give people an incentive to work, right?
It's there because it's most efficient.
As you described, if there is a profit incentive involved in a certain business, it is in someone's interest to specialise at said business. Having highly skilled professional workers within their field, using money to buy the services they can't provide and sell the services they can is beneficial for all.
Without money, you must trade what you have for something else that is conveniently there.
exactly.
Money is a mediator (a middle man, in a way) to gage (sp?) the value of different items. With money, we can have people calculate how much money a certain amount of food is worth. Otherwise, we have to calculate how much paper/glass/housing/clothing/services/other food/metal/wood/alcohol/etc a certain amount of food is worth.
as Kasic quoted, money is any circulating medium of exchange. With money, you don't have to barter trades, and you can always know what something is worth.
not to mention: you don't have to make a specific good/service to be able to buy food. you can work for a company, and with higher specialization in goods and services there can be a healthier, wealthier, better living economy.
All these features of money, I think, are artifacts of how the worldwide monetary system has evolved. When coins were first made from precious metals, they had an inherent worth. Even paper money had an intrinsic value when countries were still on the gold standard. But "money" today is a very different entity than it has been for most of history. It only has value because we think it does. But the role that currency plays in our lives in certainly not an inherent property of currency. This is simply the manner in which it has evolved into its current use. But the following quote from the OP:
It's there to give people an incentive to work, right?
I think is misleading. People had an incentive to work before the invention of currency, and to think that currency somehow filled this role is to use its current function and regress backwards in time fallaciously.
The value of currencies is closely linked to the value of commodities. It's not just because we think it's valuable, even if most operate on floating exchange rates.
I'm not relly sure we need money.Since people are getting lai off of their jobs.....why is there money?Since most people can't get cought up their house gets taken away,they live in a box and you know what happens(and no Mr Migoryum doesn't give them some money).So whats the value?Money cause:Fighting(for money),job loss and house loss(Because getting laid off from the job),and un fairness(my bro would'nt have taken my 5 bucks if it did'nt have value)and yeah I think money makes more problems then it does when we have it but if we did'nt then we could all live peacefully or some what peacful.
We invented money for a reason, societies with many members can't be Autarky. A world without money demands Autarky, but we are many and we are not hermits, so we need money.
Well I am just saying....why?We could just find food and store it in a little basement and everyone will be treated equel.Just like a body system some parts need each other to work.Thats how I would want it.If any body would get greaty we would just hit him upside the head hard.See it could work out or not.
